Boat trailer spring replacement.

[Stuck]

I'm about to embark on a fairly extensive refurb on the trailer that's under my old 20 footer. About 4 or 5 years ago I replaced the springs with some "off of the shelf" galvo ones and the results corrosion wise were fairly disappointing (yes, they did get rinsed after every outing) so I don't want to go down that path again. I thought about getting a "black" set and getting them galvanised myself but the fellow I spoke to at the galvanisers advised me against it. I'm now thinking, get a black set, dismantle them, paint them with grease, reassemble them and wrap them in denso tape. I can see 2 problems with this. 1, It will be hard to check for damage such as broken leaves and 2, If any water does get in past the denso tape it will be more or less trapped. Am I overthinking this ?. Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Anthony.

[Ean Austral]

Get a gal set and paint them with some good quality paint. Denso tape will have the reverse effect , if water penetrates at all it will hold the water in and it will rust faster and will be far less obvious. I have seen countless hydraulic hoses blow because people think denso tape will keep water and rust out.


I would just get some kill rust or similar paint , paint straight over the gal then every 12 months or so give it another coat.


Or couple spray cans of fish oil and spray them each time you take it to the boat ramp - just be warned about the looks you will get from the oil slick from the fish oil.


Cheers Ean

[roverrescue]

Let me guess
Alko off the shelf?

Maybe, depending on what flavour your twenty footer is, you could try single leaf parabolic leafs?

You can get singles up to 1400kg rating so on a twin setup you'd have 2800kg ATM

S

[Blknight.aus]

get the plain black metal ones and while they are dry and clean spray them down with wire rope spray and leave them in the sun for a while or hot box them.

IME abusing alko springs with virtually no maintenance sees about 5 years out of them before they fail.

[Stuck]

From memory they might have been AL-KO's but I'm not 100% on that.
Those springs only lasted for about 6 months before the rust stains coming from between the leaves appeared (home to boat ramp and back is <1km). After that it was a case of periodic spraying or brushing down with whatever was on hand but that was more or less like applying band-aids. I'd probably get another couple of years out of the springs but for peace of mind .....